Long distance television

Ah very true and thank you for your reply. I tried to UHF antenna on the east side of the apartment and experimented with both horizontal and vertical polarization. Turns out I can receive Central Coast but not Newcastle.

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Could you recall on whether you can receive Prime7 & Nine-NBN from there, or just the Sydney channels?

Also that there are 3 transmitter sites on the Central Coast, WIN only operates from the northern most one (Forresters Beach).

could be some somewhat decent tropo tomorrow in Renmark if this pans out, showing high to intense (4-7) on the tropo scale. Could be a battle between the Adelaide, Mildura and possibly (I highly doubt it) the Mt. Dundas/Western Victoria transmitters

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Was still showing some decent chances of ducting this morning, pretty poor again and barely a no service

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The Adelaide COVID lockdown might have locked the signals in too :grin:

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It’s been doing it before then too lol

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It’s weird. Can show really good chances of ducting but get next to nothing in activity, shows nearly nothing on the chart in the past and gets a bit of activity

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I guess they are only forecasts after all, not sure how accurate they have been historically.

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For sure. A bit like weather in a way, does what it wants when it wants

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Fingers crossed this tropo season won’t be a poor one for VHF/UHF like last season was

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Evening all. Might be a long shot but is it still possible to receive analog TV signals into Australia from overseas? Or, are there amateur TV signals broadcast over PAL which are able to be received long distance?

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I think Australia might be a little too far to receive analogue stations during tropo. During extreme tropo events in the U.S, particularly Ohio they’re able to get analogue stations from Cuba but that’s hit and miss

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Slight bit of tropo this morning in Renmark but not much to write home about. I reckon they must’ve done something with the Adelaide transmitter as percentages like this usually have some kind of pixelated picture instead of a couple scattered pixels.
EDIT: must just be the LG as my Panasonic is fine



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Woke up at 4am and discovered some very strong Sydney and Wollongong FM signals on my radio, so I thought I’d try some TV DXing.

A few weeks ago, I took a Set Top Box down to Sydney and scanned in the main Wollongong signals (which are co-channelled with the main Newcastle signals (UHF 35-39) where I am).

With that plugged in to my TV, unfortunately no amount of moving my phased array UHF antenna whilst pointed south from my balcony’s door/window would bring the Wollongong channels in. Whilst it has been possible to get Wollongong radio stations like 2VOX over my local Hit106.9, it is not without a lot of noise, and digital TV is not as forgiving here it seems.

I also tried for Southern Highlands SBS 49 and CTC 50 (Nine Wollongong), but nothing there this morning. Whilst they are only 1kw, even at a distance of 204km, I reckon with strong tropo, they could be received.

Interestingly, with the UHF phased array pointed south and with vertical polarity, it was still pulling in stable Sydney signals (at about 60% quality). With it horihorizontal, quality was 100%.

I think my only other faint DX hope is WIN-29 Bega (2.5 kw), which is a clear channel here. I have received Power FM from that site before over 2MBS, so there is some hope. The only other clear channels I have are VHF 10, UHF 34, 45 and 49-51, I don’t think there is much DXable on 10, 34 or 45 for me though.

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WIN Wide Bay tonight

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Hi guys,

I have been playing around with antennas for years and it’s very possible to receive Ballarat, Bendigo and Traralgon regional stations from different suburbs in Melbourne.

I first started playing around with antennas when I was 11 or 12 and have received all three towns from different locations in Melbourne.

The antenna you use is very important - Don’t waste your time with cheap Jaycar antennas if you want results use good quality antennas like fracarro etc makes a huge difference. Run RG6 Wuad shield and quality connections.

You also need to match your antenna to the frequency you would like to receive, narrow band uhf antennas work well as they reject other lower band frequencies, be very careful with using mast head amplifiers when receiving digital signals.

Height isn’t always the best option - You need to find the ‘sweet spot’ on your roof and this could be at a lower or obscure location sometimes.

It’s good fun but do the research before you blow money. I consider antenna setups of surrounding areas too sometimes which is an interesting observation.

If you can’t get terrestrial reception you can get all regional networks on the VAST network bu connecting as a traveler, I got a set top box for $50 on eBay and got all channels, if you have an old foxtel dish you can use that connection.

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So with the Sun having a CME and sending electromagnetic energy towards the planet, I wonder if this will cause any kind of enhancement with TV and radio signals

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I think it would tend to have the opposite effect.

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Bit of activity in Renmark this morning, somewhat stronger signal than last time (excuse the reflection on the picture)

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